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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042237">Clusivity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight'>Sixthlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Academia, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Cameos from Merrick Andy &amp; Nile, Community: theoldguardkinkmeme, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Romantic Comedy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:40:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,299</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30042237</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I do not ‘have a go’ at you,” Nicky said, with a frankly offensive degree of dignity for someone who had once called Joe both arrogant and lazy within the space of five minutes; that Joe had used the term ‘self-righteous bastard’ shortly prior was beside the point.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>627</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Clusivity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Joe liked to think of himself as someone who kept an open mind about people. But the longer he talked to the newest member of his department, the harder that was to hold to. Stephen Merrick obviously felt that the university should feel itself extraordinarily lucky he had decided to grace it with his presence, and that naturally all his new colleagues agreed with him on that point. Joe had been on a six-month sabbatical in Malta when he’d been hired, and was starting to regret that. He couldn’t imagine the man had concealed this attitude when he’d come to interview.</p>
<p>“- and of course now I’m here, I’m sure I can offer <em>lots</em> of opportunity for setting up those sorts of collaborations,” he finished. Joe had tuned out around the time he’d started name-dropping people he’d co-authored <em>Science</em> papers with. “For the colleagues who deserve it, of course.” He gave Joe a pointed look, like it was now Joe’s job to demonstrate that he was a deserving colleague.</p>
<p>“Huh,” Joe said. “How generous of you. I really should –”</p>
<p>His attempt to escape to a conversation with someone he actually liked was stymied by the arrival of Nicky diGenova, his <em>least</em>-favourite member of the Earth Sciences department (Joe balked at using the word ‘colleague’). Even Merrick was going to have to make a much stronger attempt to take out that title. They’d first met on a disastrous field trip co-run with Nicky’s then-university, Joe had complained so much when Nicky had got a job here that Andy had banned him from talking about the man, and nothing had improved.</p>
<p>“Dr Merrick,” Nicky said courteously, shaking his hand. “I am pleased to finally speak with you this evening.” He gave Joe a very neutral – interpreting charitably – sideways glance. “Joe.”</p>
<p>Joe made a noise that could – again, by charitable interpretation – be construed as an informal but not outwardly negative greeting.</p>
<p>“Oh, I sense some tension,” Merrick chortled. “Didn’t I hear you two arguing in the staff room yesterday? I have to agree, Nick – can I call you Nick? – you won’t know this, but I was a reviewer on Yusuf’s last paper and you were absolutely right, no offense, Yusuf, but I <em>was</em> surprised the editor agreed to –”</p>
<p>Nicky’s expression didn’t perceptibly change, but the local temperature dropped a solid five degrees; Joe was very familiar with this, because it was how it felt every time Nicky decided that he was bored today and wanted to assuage it by having a go at Joe. And every time Joe decided that <em>he’d</em> had enough and opened hostilities first.</p>
<p>“No,” he said, very decisively. “I do not think we agree, and if you think we do, then you entirely misunderstood the context of our discussion, which was also not intended for you to eavesdrop on.”</p>
<p>Merrick opened his mouth, but Nicky kept going. “In any case, as you are new here, it would perhaps be wise to take time to fully understand the context of the department before you go around speaking poorly of your colleagues. Dr al-Kaysani is one of the most respected members of the department and aside from his excellent research record has won the university’s teaching award three years in a row.”</p>
<p>“You’re going to make me blush,” Joe said, purely to head off any other compliments that could only logically be the result of alcohol or a blow to the head. He hoped it was the former; if anybody was going to get to punch Nicky diGenova, he definitely deserved first dibs. There was a vaguely routine air about that thought he didn't want to examine too closely.</p>
<p>“But I –” Merrick got out before he was interrupted by Andy, who had apparently decided to take pity on Joe. “Joe! There you are. Dr Freeman was saying she hasn’t talked to you at all yet and it sounds like you have some field sites in common. Come this way.”</p>
<p>“I can’t believe they were <em>already</em> ganging up on you,” she muttered as she dragged Joe away.</p>
<p>“No – yeah,” Joe said, still trying to work out what had just happened; he felt completely unable to explain it to Andy. “Are you actually taking me to talk to Nile Freeman, or were you just performing a rescue?”</p>
<p>“I actually am,” she said. “Here we are.”</p>
<p>Joe spent the next half-hour minutes in a productive and enjoyable discussion with his other new colleague about fieldwork and a grant they might want to apply for. He would have stayed even though the crowd had started to thin out – semi-mandatory social events to get to know new hires weren’t the sort of thing most academics were going to stay at long than they had to – except he saw Nicky diGenova making his way towards the exit. He knew logically that going after him was just going to result in frustration and another brick on the monument of their mutual antagonism, but…he had to know.</p>
<p>“We should talk about this some more,” he said to Nile. “The application date is August, right? That’s plenty of time to figure something out. I’ll send you an email.”</p>
<p>“I will if you don’t, I think this could work really well,” Nile said. “Somewhere to be this evening?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, you know how it is,” Joe said, discarded his glass on a table, and headed after Nicky.</p>
<p>The social event – you couldn’t call it a party; nobody had really wanted to be there and the departmental budget had been on the crisps and discount wine end of things rather than cocktails and canapes – had been held in the atrium of the new science building. Nicky was exiting out the south door, which went down a corridor past three small lecture theatres. Joe caught up with him about five metres past the door which cut them off from everybody else.</p>
<p>“Hey,” he said. “What was that about?”</p>
<p>Nicky stopped and turned. “What was what about?”</p>
<p>“Back there. You deciding to appoint yourself my greatest defender.” Joe spread his hands. “Look, we both know how it is; I thought you would have been thrilled to see one of the new people having a go at me.”</p>
<p>“I do not ‘have a go’ at you,” Nicky said, with a frankly offensive degree of dignity for someone who had once called Joe both arrogant and lazy within the space of five minutes; that Joe had used the term ‘self-righteous bastard’ shortly prior was beside the point. “And what that was <em>about</em> was that – come here.”</p>
<p>Joe was pulled swiftly but efficiently into the lecture theatre they had been standing just outside. Footsteps proceeded past; someone else had been leaving. For some reason, Joe’s first overwhelming thought was how broad Nicky’s hand was, wrapped around his forearm. He shook it off.</p>
<p>“Go on then,” Joe said. The lights were off in the lecture theatre. Nicky’s face was visible only by the light coming from the corridor, through round windows in the doors. It cast all his features into beaky relief; he had a face for sculpture, Joe’s brain commented, without Joe asking.</p>
<p>“He doesn’t get to do that,” Nicky said, slowly, like he was realising what he was saying and didn’t like it. “He doesn’t get to come here and be condescending to you – to anybody. I thought it was best to make that clear right at the beginning. Everything I told him was a fact. Do you think so poorly of me, you think I don’t know those things?”</p>
<p>Joe couldn’t help laughing. “Okay – okay. It’s alright for <em>you</em> to be condescending, but not somebody else?”</p>
<p>“I <em>don’t</em>,” Nicky said, very stubbornly. “I don’t <em>agree</em> with you, and yes I <em>still </em>think it is ridiculous that you won’t teach classes before ten, and we do not need to speak of that field trip, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect that you are good at your job. You’re just wrong sometimes.”</p>
<p>“You have an extraordinarily strange way of showing respect.” They would still be visible if anybody stopped and looked in; Joe moved sideways, away from the doors, and Nicky followed him. Now Nicky was almost invisible in shadow, only the very edges of his face and body illuminated. The air in here felt very close. Joe wondered if there was something wrong with the ventilation.</p>
<p>“You like it.” Nicky’s eyes glittered in the dimness. “You keep coming to ask me about projects. Or to tell me off about <em>my</em> work.”</p>
<p>“It’s only,” Joe said sweetly, “that I know that if <em>you</em> can’t pick a hole in something I’m doing, people who aren’t my mortal enemies definitely won’t.” A grudging sense of fairness compelled him to add “And you’re…not bad at your job, either.”</p>
<p>He thought he saw Nicky smile; it was so hard to see. “Oh, well, I’m pleased to know the respect is reciprocal.”</p>
<p>“Let me get this straight.” Joe wondered abstractly why he was dropping his voice so much; the sound insulation on these lecture theatres was very good, he’d walked past as classes were ending and heard nothing until a door had opened. “You think we have some sort of…best enemies thing going on.”</p>
<p>Nicky was murmuring, too. “You said it first.” He put two fingers on Joe’s cheek, crooking into his beard. When had they got that close? “So yes. Stephen Merrick can go and find his own academic nemesis somewhere else, and practice respecting his new colleagues. You’re <em>mine</em>.”</p>
<p>Joe was aware that he had two options, at that point. He could point out that leaning in and cupping your colleague/chosen nemesis’ face while murmuring about them not seeing other nemeses was, even by the admittedly orthogonal-to-reality standards of academia, <em>very weird</em>. Or he could step back and make a polite, possibly even collegial, exit. He’d got his answer, after all.</p>
<p>Instead he stepped closer, and closer. There was, he thought, definitely something funny going on with the ventilation. A room this size shouldn’t be this warm.</p>
<p>Nicky’s mouth was hot and surprisingly soft, for all his biting words. His hand tightened around Joe’s jaw when Joe nipped, not ungently, at his lower lip. He rested his other hand ever so softly on Joe’s waist, as Joe kissed him more urgently. It tightened too as Joe caged him against the wall, a hand on either side. For a few moments, maybe minutes, there was nothing except the quiet and the dark and the slick, very slightly wine-tasting, highly improbable delight of Nicky diGenova pinned against a wall and kissing Joe like it was going to win him an argument.</p>
<p>They were definitely past the point of <em>very weird</em> now, but at least on the same page about it. Joe could acknowledge, as he plundered Nicky’s mouth, that the heat wasn’t the room. It was in him, settling in his groin, giving him vivid, illicit flashes of much better ways to settle arguments with Nicky in future. Nicky, who was scrabbling one-handed at Joe’s belt, seemed to be thinking similar things. Joe took that as permission to do the same; he won the race and got his right hand on Nicky’s cock, which was already a little wet at the tip. Joe throbbed in his trousers; Nicky still hadn’t figured out his belt, and Joe was too busy to help.</p>
<p>Joe gave up Nicky’s mouth, somewhat reluctantly, to nibble on his earlobe – he was rewarded by Nicky’s fumbling growing even less effective – and say “If I was at <em>all</em> prepared for this, I’d take you down and fuck you over the table at the front, and then every time you taught your geohazards course you’d have to think about it.”</p>
<p>“<em>If</em> you were prepared,” Nicky said in a very high and strained voice, which was a reference to the unfortunate field trip. In retaliation Joe ignored his own erection to suck on Nicky’s tongue again and stroke him firm and insistently until he groaned into Joe’s mouth and came. That was not a sentence Joe would have contemplated thinking until about ten minutes ago, and that was, he decided, a reflection on his past self’s terrible lack of vision.</p>
<p>He pulled his hand out of Nicky’s trousers and, for lack of better options – okay, and also because he liked the idea – licked it meticulously clean. Nicky’s response to this, once he’d stopped panting, was to finish opening Joe’s trousers <em>very</em> efficiently and get on his knees. Since Nicky was the one with his back to the wall, this nearly resulted in disaster a few minutes later – well, two minutes later – when Joe came so hard in Nicky’s mouth that he had to catch himself on Nicky’s shoulders. Fortunately, they were very broad and up to the challenge.</p>
<p>Joe used them to let himself down gradually onto the floor. Now he was sitting there with his spit-covered cock out the air in the lecture theatre seemed quite cool, actually.</p>
<p>Nicky took him by the chin again and kissed him. It was sticky and tasted like both of them. Joe leaned into it hungrily.</p>
<p>“I didn’t realise,” he said when they broke apart, “that this was part of your definition of <em>nemesis</em>.”</p>
<p>“It’s a working model,” Nicky said. “I think you may have to help me develop it.”</p>
<p>“I’ll think about it,” Joe said. “I think I’ve advanced <em>my</em> hypothesis about where it needs to go. Did you have a different one?”</p>
<p>“Only in terms of location.” Sitting where they were, there was just enough light for Joe to see Nicky’s face again, his small perfect smile. “Want to come and see?”</p>
<p>“Wasn’t doing anything else tonight,” Joe said nonchalantly, and he got up and fixed his clothes and let Nicky lead him out of the lecture theatre.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>'Clusivity' is a linguistics concept which distinguishes between inclusive and exclusive first-person pronouns, e.g. between 'we (you and me)' and 'we (me and a third person)'. </p>
<p>It's totally irrelevant to the actual plot ('plot') of this fic and also extremely insider baseball, but in this AU everybody is working in an Earth Sciences department, Nicky is a volcanologist, Joe is a geochemist, Andy is a palaeontologist, Nile is an isotope geochemist, and Merrick is probably a geophysicist who came in via physics, sorry physicists. </p>
<p>Written for <a href="https://theoldguardkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/10703.html?thread=3701967#cmt3701967">this prompt</a> on the kink meme:</p>
<p>
  <i>Joe/Nicky, modern AU, enemies to lovers, this is MY enemy-to-lover and you need to get your own<br/>Modern AU of any kind. Joe and Nicky have some rivalry and argue with each other all the time. (Bickering neighbors? Sports rivals? Corporate competitors? Go wild.)<br/>Then some third person comes in and, trying to score points with Nicky, also starts ganging up on Joe. The third person is *absolutely* unprepared for Nicky to go feral and turn on him, telling him to shut up and back off Joe NOW.<br/>Basically: Nicky and Joe will argue with each other all day long, but God help the person who takes that to mean they'll tolerate anyone else yelling at the other. </i>
</p></blockquote></div></div>
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